By George Hurlbut
Nineteen year old Fraser Abdallah pitched a shutout stopping 28 shots on the road in Golden and the Ghostriders won 3-0 on Saturday and went 2-0 on the weekend. They are now 8-1-1 in their last 10 and Abdallah has a 6-2-1 record since coming back to Fernie after a couple of months in Kindersley (SJHL).
The Riders scored one in the first Ty Morton from Alex Milhouse one in the second RT Rice from Marty Wicks and one on the PP in the third McLaughlin from Milhouse and Carr for the 3-0 win.
Milhouse was named as the first star and Marty Wicks the second star. Brandon Shirley was the third star for the Rockets. Almost no penalties in this game as the boys played a prefect road game and even outshot Golden 47-28.
The Playoffs looming
The Ghostriders are now a perfect 8-0 against the Rockets and if they manage a first place finish they will have home ice against the aforementioned Rockets in the first round of the playoffs, but Kimberley may have something to say about it and despite losing 5-2 in Sicamous last Friday but won 8-0 the next night and are almost keeping pace with the Ghostriders
Next games
The Ghostriders now play a home and home against Creston next weekend and they have had trouble beating these guys lately. Friday will be the final regular season road game in Creston, the last time they travelled there they lost 4-3 in overtime. On Saturday Creston visits Fernie for their last regular season game vs the Riders and they won their last game here 4-3 on January 20th. The games mean nothing to Creston as they can’t be caught by Golden nor can they catch Kimberley or Fernie.
Off the Glass
The Ghostriders seem to have tightened up their ship for the last month of the season and have also reigned in most of the undisciplined penalties. It’s a game of cheap shots out there and they don’t call the game like in the NHL so you have to fight your way through the hooking, holding and head shots without retaliating. It’s not so important in the regular season, and in fact it’s good to retaliate with your own cheap shots and fights once in a while just so everyone knows you’re willing and able to “Gong Show” with the best, but in the playoffs you have to take the cheap shots because the PP can FU.
Last season the Ghostriders two top guns were the dynamic duo of Scott Morisseau and Thomas Abenante (photo) . Morisseau finished first in KIJHL scoring with 97 points in 50 games while Abenante finished in second place with 92 points but played 3 less games. Morisseau, who had shoulder surgery last summer wanted to play his final year at home in Castlegar so was moved there. Meanwhile Abenante who was a favourite of this writer is 21 this year and taking a course in Engineering Design and Drafting Technology at SAIT in Calgary. He says “ It’s a tough course but I’m liking it”. He also tweets once in a while that he’s missing his time in Fernie. We won’t tell him what us maintenance guys think of the engineers at the minesite…
And finally
Last summer former Ghostrider Coach Fred Harbinson “recruited” (the USHL uses a somewhat different word) several of their best players for his BCHL Penticton Vees. They hate him in the USA and a couple of weeks ago in Merritt they were whining all over the newspapers about how Harbinson was ruining the league by not making his players fight the Merritt players and becuase he recruited a good team instead of a bad team like they usually have in Merritt ( they are pretty good this season though). Anyway, Harbinson’s Vees now have a BCHL record with 30 straight wins. Congrats Fred
